The use of social networking and messaging services over mobile communications networks has become increasingly popular as the number of users of mobile devices has increased. This has been particularly notable as the use of smartphones and tablets has increased. The increase in popularity of these social networking and messaging services has also been accompanied by constant advancement in the capabilities and the technologies of the devices, networks and systems used to provide these services. Social networking and messaging services may be provided to end users by utilizing different types of interconnected networks having different communications capabilities such as, for example the internet, cellular networks, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. The services may be made available to many individual users each having different types of devices such as smart phones, tablets, desktop personal computers, laptops, or other types of communication devices. The increase in popularity of social networking and messaging services on mobile devices has also resulted in creation of new service providers and in new services for messaging and sharing of content and media. These services may comprise publicly accessible social network services that include control of the privacy of communication and content within a social platform. This control includes allowing users control of access to their shared graphical and textual content and allows identity verification of social network members for sharing content.
Social Networking and messaging will continue to grow in popularity in conjunction with increasing concerns about personal privacy for users' communication and content in online social environments.
As a result of the growth and creation of large numbers of social networking/messaging services and personal privacy concerns, it would be desirable to have a service that allowed users to share secret “encoded” media such as, for example, photos and chats, with their trusted friends through the service and also allowed sharing across various other independent social media platforms. Further, it would be desirable that such a service provided secure sharing of the shared media in a user friendly manner and was adaptable and flexible in providing interaction with other social media platforms.